What shutter speed and aperture are you using? In the PAL world I try to use the 1/50 shutter (NTSC: 1/60) then try to bring the aperture between 5.6 and 11 (not any lower!) Compensate with ND- or polarization filters to maintain the aperture at this level.

well, no guarantee Chris! But I found that I have to experiment with my lenses to find the aperture level that give me the best picture. And I have found that my lenses gives me the best picture at these aperture levels.

The quality of the glass (optics quality) are the main factor here. Bad optics quality = bad pictures.

he knows a lot about that haze issue, if i recall correctly. if you don't hear from him soon on this thread, you should e-mail him your question directly. super-helpful guy with great insights on shooting long lenses. i'm pretty sure he has addressed this in a past thread.

long lenses take a lot of practice and experimentation. and a bomber tripod!

i don't know if this is relevant, but i think that i get that haze primarily when i am shooting too close to the end of the zoom....

Meryem has a good point. My personal opinion of the 100 - 400 Canon lens(assuming you are using Canon) is that it is soft at the long end. Try it at 300mm and as wide aperture as you can get, f2.8 or f4. As a trial , use a faster shutter speed to get the aperture open. Lock your tripod and don't pan. Be very careful with your focusing, it seems a lot of the frames were out of focus and a bit overexposed. I beleive a lot in what Per says; But I have to dissagree with the heat wave issue. You have heat waves in most of the clips,snow or not. Some of the worst heat waves I have had were in the snow. Wide open apertures will help!
Chris, Jackson has some of the best wildlife videographers in the world. Give me a call and I'll connect you with two or three.
You really should have a RONSRAIL too!!
I spend a lot of time in YNP. Where did you get those bears?
Ron www.ronsrail.com

chris, you might also want to experiment more with creating a long lens custom setting as well, which is specific to the lens you use most. i find that you have to saturate colors more when you work with the adapter because shooting through multiple lenses tends to result in more washed out colors. pump up your color settings a mite and you'll get better results.

what do you mean pump up my color settings, I know where to do that but I have no idea what to set it to, could you give me settings to try and I will shot next weekend with those. I will try and not go pass 300mm as well and see if that helps reduce the haze

I agree with the others that there is too much camera shake and both contrast and sharpness is low in most of the bear footage (slightly underexposing the subject or upping contrast in post may help sometimes).

It is often much better to frame your subjects and lock the tripod head tight and then let the subjects move in and out of frame. When the subjects (bears) move out of shot, simply reframe and lock-down again. Also try to interpret the direction they are moving and let them move into the empty frame.

Try to avoid panning most of the time if possible, although some slow and steady panning can add impact to some sequences (often it is the start and end of each pan that has shake, so sometimes a pan can be saved at the post editing stages by only using the central portion of a pan and then fading this into the next clip). Remember that that the wider the angle, the easier it is to pan, so only use the extreme telephoto end sparingly until you have practiced long and hard with technique.

I also noticed that the exposure shifted each time that the bears moved. Once you have sorted the correct exposure (it should remain stable in overcast or clear conditions) it is wise to then press the Exposure Lock button for the rest of the sequence.

Use a polarizer to intensify colours and contrast (A UV filter can also help cut through some haze).

Another option is to use a remote-controlled tripod-mounted camera + shorter lens setup (although this means only a static framing can be used…unless you also employ a battery-powered revolving pan-head).

Time of day can also be a factor, and shooting at the start and end of each day can help avoid haze…although mid-morning or early-afternoon bright sun shining over your shoulder and falling directly on the subjects can often provide awesome deeply saturated colours when in combination with a polarizer (just watch out for harsh shadows, especially if the animals are moving in and out of forest cover or bushes etc).

Wind is also another big problem when using the longer lenses, so even if your subjects are in the wind, try to position the video camera somewhere where the lens is not being buffeted by side winds (taking off the lens hood also helps as it shortens the lens during high winds and sometimes a sandbag or beanbag draped over the lens/camera helps absorb shake). Adjusting the tripod to its lowest setting and splaying the tripod legs for low-level shooting also helps.

ok will try this stuff this weekend, if I have the money I will try and get a polorizer, any suggestions on what to get?

What is this remote head your talking about, I didn't think they made anything that woud support an XL2 for pitch roll and yaw, or is it just pitch and yaw? How much does that thing cost and how big s the tripod for it?

mostly what i meant was press the color gain (i'm noticing tony's setting is at +4) and press the blacks. tony has shared a nice pre-set, but you should also play with those custom features to figure out what you like best. pre-sets are usually good starting points, but different outdoor conditions mean that it is good to also tweak these on-site (maybe you want to push the reds if you're shooting in redrock country, for more landscape contrast, or maybe you want to push the greens a little, if you're in a wildflower field, etc.--i shoot a lot in canyon country and that means pushing the reds a bit, generally, and increasing overall saturation).